How ,to obtain it. 141 



superior race. Many a time I have started off at four or five 

 o'clock on a November morning for a long and tedious walk over 

 the Cumberland mountains, often rendered even dangerous by the 

 accumulations of snow and ice met with at that season of the year. 

 After fishing all day we would come back tired and weary at night, 

 ;with perhaps a few thousands of trout eggs in the collecting cans, 

 and often enough with none. These were laid down carefully on 

 the grilles in the Troutdale Hatchery, where the work was carried 

 on for fifteen years. There was an amount of enjoyment in it 

 which it is impossible to describe it must be felt to be under- 

 stood and an excellent opportunity was afforded of studying the 

 habits of the various species or varieties of fish with which we 

 came in contact. 



The information gained from practical sources in those days 

 has proved of very great value, and has been of material assistance 

 in the building up of a successful fish farm. It is now so extensive 

 that it has been found quite impossible to get a good photograph 

 of the ponds, but the accompanying illustration will give some 

 idea as to the way in which they are laid out. I often smile as I 

 remember the time when we hunted the trout in the wild mountain 

 glens of Borrowdale and the neighbouring valleys in Cumberland, 

 when, although armed with permission from riparian owners, we 

 were loudly denounced by a certain class, many of whom ought 

 to have known better, as poachers, &c. But out of it all has 

 been acquired a mass of information which has enabled us to- 

 carry the work forward until it has assumed its present proportions. 

 Instead of collecting ova from the natural streams, which at best 

 is very arduous and costly work even when properly carried out, 

 they are now taken in enormous quantities from fish reared in 

 well-made ponds, which are entirely under control. Upwards of 

 a quarter of a million trout ova have been taken in one morning, 

 and of coarse fish I have taken a million before breakfast. 



I have made these preliminary observations, in order that the 

 uninitiated may at once realize to some extent the altered position 

 in which fish-culture stands to-day, as compared with its position 

 a quarter of a century ago. The eggs now obtained from the 

 domesticated fish referred to require to be built up for months 

 beforehand in the ovaries of the fish, and great attention has to be 



